Schizophrenia and substance abuse

I’ve been clean for almost a year and I don’t understand why I ever used in the first place. I was using meth and it would make me hallucinate even more. What I don’t understand is the link between schizophrenia and substance abuse. I read that about 1/2 of us have a substance abuse problem. Does anyone have any ideas as to why?

I wrote a paper on this. Half of the time we do it to get high, just like normal people, half of the time it’s self-medication. The vast majority of us drink lots of caffeine and smoke cigarettes, by the way. One study showed 90% of schizophrenics to be smokers. I am symptom free (meds) unless I get overwhelmed with stress, and I drink caffeine twice a day and smoke 12-15 cigarettes a day.

It’s also theorized to create social networks, ie drinking buddies, drug buddies. For me, my alcoholism was responsible for 100% of my social life before I got on meds.

Congrats on almost being a year clean! :clap:

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Wow, thanks @mortimermouse. That was an eye opener and a very good explanation to the answer

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Glad to be of service. I just wrote two term papers on schizophrenia, I love answering questions about it. I have it, after all. I was a psychotic alcoholic on this day a year ago. Now my meds have me pretty darn sane, I’ve only had a couple of brief 3 hour long relapses since I got on my meds. One of them was actually on Saturday. It’s finals week :frowning:

Thanks @barbiebf! I’m very proud of myself and my family is too. Thanks @mortimermouse for your expertise and also congratulations on being sober!

For me and some of the people I’ve met the drugs and alcohol were for self medicating purposes.

Alcohol would sort of knock down the voices
Coke or amphetamines would kick out the lack of motivation
The XTC would melt away the lack of emotion

I was ill before I started drugs, but I reached for drugs to combat this and try and be and feel normal.

Congratulations on the almost year clean. It’s hard work. I’m glad your kicking it.

Dual diagnosis occurs when someone has both a mental disorder and an alcohol or drug problem.

http://www.healthyplace.com/addictions/addictions-information/what-is-dual-diagnosis/

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